the yellow box

the incident

The week after the Byers return to California, Mike is a mess. His energy is gone again. Sometimes Holly hears him crying through the thin wall between their rooms. Sometimes she hears the same rock music that had been playing in his room on Christmas night. Sometimes she hears his window open, and she's never sure where he goes - one time she'd tried to stay up until she heard him return, but he must have come back after she fell asleep.

Nancy goes back to college two days after the Byers leave. When she's gone, Holly feels a kind of emptiness that she knows she shouldn't feel at her age. She longs for the old Nancy that still lived with them and cut Holly's pancakes for her. She longs for the old Mike that joked around and watched weird movies with her.

Sometimes at dinner, Mike fights with Dad. Holly tries to tune it out - she doesn't like listening to it. One day, Mike comes home with black nail polish on his left middle finger. At dinner, Dad notices it.

"Michael, what's that on your hand?" Dad asks. Mike looks up from his broccoli.

"A fork?" he deadpans.

"Don't talk back to me. Did you paint your nails?"

Mike scoffs and rolls his eyes. He's been doing that a lot recently. Holly sees Mom shift uncomfortably, but neither of them say anything.

"Max did it. It's no big deal."

"It's no big deal that my son is walking around looking like a queer?"

Holly feels the pit of her stomach start to churn. She's heard Dad use that word before. She's always been too scared to ask what it meant. Mike drops his fork with a loud clatter and glares at Dad.

"You're back on this bullshit again?"

"Hey, language," Dad sternly reminds him.

"It's just fucking nail polish, it doesn't mean anything."

"Michael-" Mom tries to say.

"What? Are you taking his side like you always do? This is fucking ridiculous." He gets up and walks toward the stairs.

"Go to your room, young man," Dad says.

"Where the fuck do you think I was going?" Mike yells, already halfway up the steps. She hears his door slam. Dad huffs. Mom takes a deep breath and refills her wine. Holly suddenly feels sick. She tugs at her mom's sleeve.

"What is it, sweetie?" Mom asks.

"May I be excused?"

"Oh. Did you eat enough?" Mom frowns. Holly nods vigorously. With a sigh, Mom allows her to leave the table. Holly rushes up the stairs and heads straight for Mike's room. She hears angry whispers from the dining table and ignores the sound as she knocks on her brother's door.

"Fuck off, Mom," he says from his room.

"It's Holly," she mumbles. After a few seconds of silence, the door opens to reveal Mike, hair disheveled and eyes red. Looking behind him, she sees clothes and books all over the floor. Every surface is cluttered. A walkie talkie sits in his bed, next to his pillow. "Can I come in?" Mike nods and lets her in.

"Sorry," he says quietly. Holly crawls into his bed and Mike sits at his desk. He reaches into his backpack and takes out a blue notebook. He starts his homework, and the silence in the room does absolutely nothing to drown out the increasingly loud voices from downstairs. The voices sound angry. Frustrated.

"Can you play music?" Holly asks uncertainly. He looks up at her.

"Um, yeah, sure. What do you want?"

"Anything you like."

Mike shrugs and gets up from his desk, walking over to his stereo. He picks a mixtape from his collection of cassettes and inserts it. The cassette tape makes a pleasant clicking noise before the music begins. The song starts off with a guitar riff. The drums kick in. Holly immediately recognizes the song from the multiple times she's heard it coming from Mike's room.

Darling, you've got to let me know,

"Should I stay or should I go?" Mike mumbles under his breath. Holly wrinkles her nose.

"You like this song?" she asks incredulously. Mike lets out a small laugh.

"No, not really." He sits next to her on his bed and closes his eyes, nodding his head to the beat. She looks at his painted nail and the churning in her stomach starts again as she remembers Dad's words.

"Mike?"

"Yeah?"

"Your nails look good."

He opens his eyes and smiles in a way that doesn't fill up his entire face.

"Thanks, Hols."

The fights between Mom and Dad become more and more frequent. Every day, Holly and Mike spend less and less time at the dinner table in an effort to avoid the inevitable argument that'll spark out of nothing. Holly starts spending evenings sitting in Mike's bed or looking through Mike's music or watching Mike do his homework. Mike starts to walk Holly to and from school so that Mom doesn't have to drive her. He takes Holly to the arcade and teaches her how to play Dig Dug. He shows her Family Video and tells her about his favorite movies. He buys her ice cream with his allowance money.